The middle 10 of our top 30 prospects is a real melting pot. You have players from last year's top 10 who are dropping on account of underwhelming performance. You have the players with average years who remained in the middle. You have a rising star who had a great season to put himself on the map, as well as a new draftee and a player who arrived through a trade.

It's time for the newest edition of the Batter's Box Blue Jays Top 30 prospects. This marks the fifteenth year of the top 30 here on Da Box.

As we remind readers each year, the expectation of the top 30 prospects for any team is that one third will improve, one third will regress and one third will stay as they were. The Jays front office added a lot of pieces to the system this year as part of the mid-season clear-out. Not all of the prospects added via trades have made this list. As has been discussed on Da Box, the Jays system includes a lot of players who are possible prospects. Some people see them as prospects, some as longshots and some as not a prospect. As a result there are many players who Blue Jay fans consider to be prospects who did not make it onto our top 30. In another season, or if they were on a different team, they would be on a top 30 list.

Two of last year's top 30 were traded, Conner Greene and Edward Olivares were dispatched in the off-season. Three players "graduated", Richard Urena , Ryan Borucki and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. The remaining 25 players from last year's top 30 go into Da Box's mixer with the newly drafted players, the international signings, the traded-for players and those whose performance took a step forward in 2018. The mixer goes to work, powered by the votes of our minor league team, and kicks out the definitive list of the Blue Jays top 30 prospects. Eighteen of last year's top 30 are back. As mentioned, five no longer qualify so seven have dropped off. Not all of the seven who dropped had bad years, some were injured and some just had average years and dropped off due to more competition in a stronger system.

As usual the first 10 are published today, the next 10 tomorrow, and the top 10 on the day after. Let the discussion begin!

The Jays have a logjam of infielders and need pitching so today they traded Aledmys Diaz to the Astros for AAA RHP Trent Thornton. Thornton is a riser in the Astros system who wasn't a top 30 prospect a year ago but who had a break out 2018.

All the games are now done so it's time to get all the houses in order. The Blue Jays started today with some roster shuffling. The Jays do have a roster crunch and have some tough decisions regarding who to add to the 40 man roster.

Willie McCovey died this week at the fairly ripe age of 80, and while he's rightfully remembered as one of the most fearsome hitters of his day, I'm incapable of thinking of old Stretch without reflecting on how the 1962 World Series ended.

Numerous reports say the Jays will hire Charlie Montoyo as their new manager. The hiring of Montoyo is a bit unexpected as he was the oldest candidate under consideration, 53 years old, and appeared to be the least up to date with modern analytics. Montoyo played four major league games and had five at-bats, all for the Expos. Montoyo had a long minor league career followed by a long minor league managing career.

Iím creating a separate thread for discussions about the Jays managerial search. The Jays are reportedly down to four finalists: Joe Espada, Brandon Hyde, Rocco Baldelli and a fourth unnamed individual. Ed Sprague and Stubby Clapp are among the names that have reported to have done at least an initial interview, although itís not clear if either is a finalist.

Ask and ye shall receive.....ayjackson asked for a minor league thread to discuss BA's top 20's by league lists. I have been away so I am playing catch-up here. One thing to note about these lists is league size. For example the Midwest League had 16 teams, the GCL 18. So there is just over one top 20 spot per team. The Northwest League has 8 teams, the Appy League ten. If you play in those two leagues you have almost double the chance to make a top 20 list. Through four affiliates, the full season teams, the Jays have just five players make the lists.